The present invention relates to an improved grip for golf clubs and other sporting equipment employing handles subject to shock when such devices are impacted, as for example, tennis racquets, racquetball racquets, and baseball bats.
It is well known that shock generated by impact between a golf club and a golf ball or a tennis racquet and a tennis ball can adversely affect muscle tissue and arm joints, such as elbow joints. The energy generated by such impact is usually of high frequency and short duration with rapid decay, and which is often known as "impact shock." Tight grasping of a golf club grip or tennis racquet grip to keep it from slipping in a user's hands contributes to such impact shock.
Applicant has previously developed resilient grips which successfully reduce or even eliminate impact shock to the muscle and arm joints of the users of golf clubs and the like. See, for example, applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,059 and U.S. Pat. No. Re. 35,673. Such earlier grips utilize a polyurethane layer bonded to a felt layer to define a strip which is spirally wrapped around the handle of a golf club or tennis racquet to conform generally to the external configuration of such handle. In earlier grips of applicant's design, the thickness of the polyurethane layer relative to the thickness of the felt layer as compared to prior art resilient grips was a minimum of approximately 0.18, with the thickness of the polyurethane layer having been about equal to or thicker than the thickness of the textile layer in a typical grip of my design. Also, in some of such earlier grips, the side edges of the polyurethane-felt strip tended to unravel in use, and where the strip was not properly applied to a golf club handle, the grip would tend to loosen relative to the handle, particularly, when a golf club was withdrawn from a golf club bag. To overcome these disadvantages, my later grip designs utilized heat-compressed radially inwardly extending reinforcement side edges formed in the polyurethane layer along the length of the strip. The recessed side edges also enhance the frictional grip of a user's hands on the golf club or tennis racquet, and under humid or rainy conditions inhibits water from infiltrating the felt layer. Such moisture tends to build up on the grip which could result in a user's hands slipping relative to the grip with a result in diminished control of the golf club or tennis racquet.